Environmental Monitoring

As cities and local governments strive to improve quality of life for their citizens, implementing solutions for environmental monitoring has become a critical priority. The quality of air, water and soil is impacted by many factors, from population growth and industrial pollution to climate change and ecological disasters. Comprehensive environmental monitoring can help city managers proactively identify risks and take steps to protect public health and preserve natural resources.

Environmental monitoring is one of many smart city technologies that use a vast network of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to provide real-time data that helps cities to more efficiently manage everything from traffic and parking to utilities and waste management to security and local government services. Environmental monitoring may include sensors for dust monitoring and air pollution monitoring, weather and temperature monitoring, and soil and water quality monitoring.

In a smart environmental monitoring system, IoT sensors produce a steady stream of real-time data that is collected via wired, wireless and cellular protocols and transmitted to the city through a high-speed network. The data is aggregated and evaluated by an analytics platform and communicated to city managers through intelligent interfaces such as dashboards, maps and reports.

Providing comprehensive, real-time information on a vast number of data points, environmental monitoring enables cities to better manage a growing number of public health and environmental concerns.

Benefits of smart environmental monitoring technology

Environmental monitoring technology enables cities to:

• Reduce the likelihood of ecological disasters. By identifying potential disasters earlier, cities can help to prevent events such as oil spills, chemical leaks and natural gas explosions and to avoid the many costs and adverse outcomes that they cause.
• Minimize the impact of natural disasters. By issuing timely alerts about natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods, cities can help to prevent massive loss of life and property.
• Improve public health. From water and air quality monitoring to mitigating exposure to dangerous pollutants, environmental monitoring can help cities to ensure a healthier environment for citizens.
• Protect natural resources. Environmental monitoring solutions provide data on everything from greenhouse emissions, oceanic changes and temperature variations to air and water quality, vegetation cover and soil quality. This data can help cities to enact measures to better protect vital natural resources.
• Ensure compliance. Environmental monitoring can help to detect and prevent threats to air, water and soil that violate regulatory codes such as the Clean Water Act.

Spectrum Enterprise: providing connectivity for environment monitoring

Spectrum Enterprise is a leading provider of connectivity solutions to governments and enterprises throughout the U.S. With more than 840,000 miles of wholly owned fiber network, Spectrum is already a trusted provider to many smart cities, delivering the high-speed network required to connect thousands of IoT sensors.

To support environmental monitoring and other smart technologies like smart traffic, smart waste management and smart grid solutions, Spectrum Enterprise provides:

• A two-way, fully interactive digital network with symmetrical connection speeds up to 100 Gbps for government and enterprise clients, and gigabit connections for homes and businesses.
• A variety of connectivity protocols, including more than 350,000 Spectrum WiFi hotspots as well as cellular connectivity through one of the country’s largest LTE cellular networks.

Learn more about Spectrum Smart Cities at www.spectrumsmartcities.com.